Indeed, best wishes for Norm. I hope the University takes good care of him. I very much want to see him coach here for another 12 years, so I hope he takes the time that he needs to make a full recovery.

I like Meyers a lot. Those touchbacks were certainly refreshing to see. But I do agree that the coverage teams need to improve. It is certainly plausible that after the past couple of years they were expecting that teams would field the ball at the 10 or 15, so they had less ground to cover and thus didn't have to run down field so quickly. But that is an adjustment that should be easy to make, so I hope that it is corrected.

As to the place kicker competition... I wish during either the EIU or the ISU game we would have kicked a few field goals to get Mossbrucker back up to game speed. It didn't happen and I'm concerned about that element of our game. He did well on extra points during the ISU game; I listened to the EIU game so I wasn't able to watch him kick during that one.

And Donahue is always a beast. I have no concerns there except for the punt coverage.

Indeed, best wishes for Norm. He has several highly qualified assistants that should be able to run things nicely, so I'm not terribly alarmed at this news. But at the same time I hope he returns quickly. He is one of the top defensive coaches out there, and just a wonderful person as well.

I also remember the last time Iowa played in the Orange Bowl prior to last season. And they made the corrections necessary to keep their team focused and disciplined. I expect no less from the coaches for their next trip into the desert. One thing about this staff, they are very good about learning from their mistakes and not repeating them.

I expect a tough game in the first half, but I expect Iowa to open up a lead and win going away. I look to see Iowa make a statement in this game.

Marc, you have the ISUs ins and outs... how about the Hawks? I believe it was Tuesday when Coach Ferentz held his weekly press conference, and listed a number of guys as questionable. Among them was Prater. Any word on whether his hamstring is well enough to put him on the field? Tarp as well, he was listed as probable since they had cut down the bulb on his hand. Any update there?

"And while penn state, isnt technically a rivalry, it was really beginning to heat up as a series, and has really stirred the passions of hawk fans more than say the minnesota game has for probably the last 10 years. So IMO Iowa is really losing its two biggest CURRENT rivals"

While the Penn State game has been exciting lately, Iowa and Penn St do not have a protected game. PSU would have rotated off of our schedule anyways. The current divisional split does not change that. The only thing it changes is that Wisconsin is no longer a protected game. Yes, that stinks, but I am absolutely excited about the UN game, and I think it will be a much bigger deal than the Wisconsin game.

Hopefully in a few years when the conference goes to a 9 game conference schedule we can either pick Wisconsin up as another protected game, or we will simply be facing them more often due to the increased conference schedule.

Purdue is a bore, yes. But look at the silver lining: most years it should be another guaranteed win. Those are nice.